NEA to Double Member Dues Contribution to Political War Chest

posted at 1:45 pm on February 26, 2011 by Mike Antonucci

Amid substantial membership losses and a $14 million shortfall in its general operating budget, the National Education Association plans to double each active member’s annual contribution to the national union’s political and media funds.

Currently, $10 of each active member’s NEA dues is allocated to these special accounts. The more than $20 million collected each year is then disbursed to state affiliates and political issue campaigns – such as last year’s SQ 744 in Oklahoma. A portion of the money also pays for state and national media buys to support the union’s agenda.

But the most recent numbers show NEA lost more than 54,000 active K-12 members since this time last year. Coupled with less-than-expected increases in the average teacher salary – upon which NEA dues are based – the union will find itself with $14 million less revenue than it had planned. This includes about $500,000 less in the political and media funds.

Faced with unfriendly legislatures and governors seeking to roll back the union’s influence, the NEA Executive Committee decided to double down – literally. It proposed raising each active member’s assessment to $20, effective in September 2011. The union’s board of directors ratified the decision, and it will go before the NEA Representative Assembly for a vote this July in Chicago. If passed, NEA’s national dues for teachers will total $178.

The increase in the assessment has a five-year sunset clause, but this is just eyewash, since the last time the contribution was doubled – from $5 to $10 in 2004 – it also had a five-year sunset clause. The 2007 NEA Representative Assembly made the $10 contribution permanent.

NEA is already the top political campaign spender in the nation. This increase will give the national union an additional $40 million per election cycle. The increase alone is larger than all but two other groups spent during the entire 2007-08 cycle.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
To see the comments on the original post, look here.

I guess one of the reasons the ‘political war chest’ is almost kaput, the higher ups in the nea spend it on vacations for themselves and family. I have read the higher ups in the nea spend as much money on themselves as most of the dc bunch does at taxpayers exense. I bet some teachers are not going to be all that thrilled at more money demanded by them to see bho and the d’s get re-elected!
L

I believe that somewhere in the nano-printing between Article 10 and Article 11 of the Constitution there is a clause that says something like “it is AOK with us if you donate our money for whatever you like and if you need more just take it and don’t worry”…or something like that. Some civics teacher in HS swore there was anyway…I think, maybe.

So can someone fill me in on the basics? Are public school teachers often required to be members of the NEA, or is it usually optional? And if mandatory, how do teachers feel about having to contribute to an organization that fights education reform/improvement?

Under the Beck decision, any union member can demand a refund of all union dues that go towards political activities. I am in California, and I pay an “agency fee” to SEIU even though I am not a union member. Each year, I demand the refund and get back almost 40% of those fees. Teachers can, too.

So can someone fill me in on the basics? Are public school teachers often required to be members of the NEA, or is it usually optional? And if mandatory, how do teachers feel about having to contribute to an organization that fights education reform/improvement?

David Shane on February 26, 2011 at 2:19 PM

Depends on the county/state. Some teachers can opt out. But even then most still contribute. Think of having to go to work every day with the thugs in Wisconsin and be labeled as a traitor to the union. Not exactly a friendly work environment.

Sorry, marine, I think I steered you wrong there. It looks as if that figure is the yearly one, but teachers also have other dues (local union, etc) and they usually pay more than $100/month total. (That’s why I was confused.)

My local school board has a bond measure up for a vote soon. I got a nice piece of propaganda in the mail begging me to vote yes. I was told that if I don’t up to 200 people may be laid off! MY GOD!! 200 people laid off? I can’t let that happen. I will vote to raise my taxes so the poor, poor dears don’t get laid off and continue riding the gravy train.

I was a high school science teacher in California for 25 years. It was and still is a closed shop state. You must pay dues to the union whether you belong or not. They took money out for the local education association the State association and the NEA. The only thing I could do was demand each year that the portion of dues used for political purposes be donated to a charitable organization. Even that sucked because the organization had to be on the NEA approved list.

Back in the day, the NEA tried all sorts of ways to convince teachers that they weren’t a union. You could belong to your local affiliate and not the state or national. The Federation was the union, not the Education Association. As the NEA gained more power(not for teachers) they decided that they would make it mandatory to belong to all three organizations, local, state, and national. Now the dues for all three were coming up on $600 a year and this was 35 years ago. It was a lot of money for not much. They took it out of your check every two weeks so you wouldn’t feel the pain so much.
I don’t remember voting on the officers’ salaries, but I do remember that the local wanted to buy a building for their offices and meetings. They had an election for five straight years and it failed. No one thought it was a good idea except the officers. They got sick of holding elections and loosing so they must have hired a good vote counter because they got their building and we got a dues raise. People started quietly leaving.

When all this finally comes crashing down there are going to be a bunch of former “teachers” who’ve been displaced by businessmen and scientists and historians and economists who actually know something about the subjects they’re giving instruction on.

The former “teachers” are going to find that a certificate claiming they know how to “teach” (regardless of knowing anything about the subject) doesn’t mean squat.

Better start practicing that sunshine-happy-face and “Would you like fries with that?”.

I will vote to raise my taxes so the poor, poor dears don’t get laid off and continue riding the gravy train.

angryed on February 26, 2011 at 2:25 PM

I will never vote in their favor again until they stop supporting the dems. If it would stay in the schools that’s one thing, but they are the biggest PAC there is and I will not aid and abet that anymore.

It’s just my opinion, but this entire strike-or whatever they call it- is a PR disaster for teachers nationwide. You think no one respected you before, teachers? Now you look like a bunch of greedy, selfish, mafia/union thugs on top of your lazy incompetents reputation (deserved or not). Funny. “Goodfellas” was on tv last night. I immediately thought of the teachers and their fellow union thugs in WI. It’s true that not all states have teacher bennies, or salaries, like WI, but they too will bear the backlash for Wisconsin’s selfish educators.

That grossly understates the spending by the NEA and its affiliates, including the Wisconsin Educators Association Council, as it only counts actual donations. It doesn’t count other items, such as donations to other (invariably liberal) organizations, polling conducted by the teachers, and postage of mass mailings.

According to Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, in the 2009-2010 election cycle (which included a “non-partisan” state superintendent race in 2009 successfully bought by WEAC), WEAC PAC spent over $3.2 million, with over $2.4 million spent just last year.

But the most recent numbers show NEA lost more than 54,000 active K-12 members since this time last year.

Nice start. Can we make it 154,000 this year?

angryed on February 26, 2011 at 2:20 PM

This is your organization teachers. Do you think they look out for you? or themselves? To think that they actually ‘look out for you’ please just look over the landscape of steadily growing numbers of heads in your classrooms, the funds drying up for supplies, the crap you deal with, the parents that expect you to do all-be all to the keyids. Ask yourself this lil’ question, Are you better off now than you were when you joined this union?

So, the Privileged Class with the gold plated health care and retirement plans that are immune from market fluxuations caused by Left Wing attacks on capitalism need money for another retreat to meet with the Fleebaggers to promote more of the same old politically bigoted bashing of capitalism and private sector jobs that has made this mess… Go figure… Sounds like a wonderful idea.

1: Make the border a one way door – outbound. Illegals and disgruntled public sector union members – express service – no waiting!

2. 10% reduction in Federal Spending each and every year until members of Congress have to look under the cushions of the sofa in the cloak rooms to fund their special, pet projects.

3. Make Senator and Congressmen a volunteer position. No pay, no pension – nothing. And make corruption a SERIOUS offense. No more of this nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more to finding stacks of cash in a freezer. People who abuse the public trust should be exempt from considerations of the eighth amendment. Public Stocks on the National Mall sounds like a shovel ready project I could get behind.

So can someone fill me in on the basics? Are public school teachers often required to be members of the NEA, or is it usually optional? And if mandatory, how do teachers feel about having to contribute to an organization that fights education reform/improvement?

Depends. In CA, you either have to join CTA when you’re tenured or have that same amount of money go to a “charity.” It’s about $1k a year in my district, and some of that goes to pay the expenses of the “local” (our district’s local, misleadingly called an “education association”), some to CTA, and some to the NEA.

Many teachers are lefties, so they don’t have any problem with CTA/NEA’s political activities.

Hear my plea, fellow conservatives, become teachers so we can outnumber ’em and truly reform education.

Every teacher, every union member in America must be informed of SCOTUS’s decision in Beck v CWA.Any worker is entitled to a dues refund for any monies not involved in actual contract bargaining. At the least, the paperwork alone will disrupt union activities.

When all this finally comes crashing down there are going to be a bunch of former “teachers” who’ve been displaced by businessmen and scientists and historians and economists who actually know something about the subjects they’re giving instruction on.

BowHuntingTexas on February 26, 2011 at 2:47 PM

Really? And many of you are complaining about teacher pay and benefits now?

Besides, I believe many of those you’ve just mentioned are more than likely Leftists, so still I fail to see how that would fix anything?

So many of you are outside this battlefield called Wi, what are people you live and work with saying on this. I really need to hear what does the rest of the country think?

wi farmgirl on February 26, 2011 at 2:55 PM

No one where I work supports the legislator runaways; even those that sympathize with the teacher/union point of view about losing collective bargaining power.

My Father taught high school for 40 years. He felt the union largely protected poor teachers. What he wanted from both the union and the administrators as well as the School Boards was backing him up when disruptive students had to be removed from the class room. He felt he could teach any kid something if you got the kids who did not want anyone to learn anything out of the class. That is an area where the union can both win teacher appreciation and help kids learn if they want to get real about it. When you send kids out and they come right back; guess what? He said very few excessively permissive, chaotic schools are that way because the teachers want it that way. Discipline policy is something that could be part of collective bargaining and benefit the students and the school. Where are the screaming unionists on that issue?

So if they double the dues will that cover all the teachers about to be fired in WI?

What will they do when their members start to leave them in droves as the union will have just demonstrated it is absolutely, positively clueless about how government works? All those teachers will have demonstrated that, taken as a whole, they aren’t capable of understanding the system they have to work with. Who would stick with a clueless teacher’s union?

RE: K4 in Wisconsin. School boards want it because it puts more bodies in the seats. The way WI schools are financed is on a per-student basis.

If a school loses 10 students at 10K each, their funding goes down by 100,000. That could trigger a lowering of the tax levy. The problem is, losing 10 students doesn’t clear a classroom, but it eliminates funding for 1 teacher.

So, adding 100 K4 kids means 2.5 more teachers (3 am, 2 pm classes) but adds 1,000,000 to the budget… so taxes can go up to pay for more teachers at the high school.

This is especially useful in districts where extra space already exists but enrollment has dropped significantly.

BTW, there is a circuit breaker (5 districts have tripped it) that says a school can only lose 15% of its funding in a given year.